Monthly Archives: August 2014

An escolar inesculent eructed at the table.
An elocutionist by calling, erumpent and most
erudite, the escolar exceptional eschewed
essential themes of ethics and economy,
ejaculating most effectively on eschatology.

If you could just elutriate, he said,
all thoughts of ‘ell and ‘eaven,
allow that moon’s evections
can effect (sic) the evenest
of minds, that evidence
and etymons empiricized
empoison some and others
elevate, I think you’d find
you would elude most fears
of death and end. Such
evanescent notions would
evapotranspirate, and you,
my friend, would fast evaginate—
like socks! And newly inside
out, you would experience
ecstatic, though I’ll grant you,
embryonic, new emergences
sans effort, sans unease.

An inedible fish resembling a mackerel belched at the table. A public speaker, bursting forth with learning, this very special fish tended to avoid topics of ethics and economy. Most of his utterances were about the end of the world.

“If you could just purify by washing out all thoughts of hell and heaven; accept that orbital disturbances of the moon can affect any of us; allow that observation and experience, proof, and word derivations will make some people bitter and others feel fantastic, I think you’d shake off most fears of termination and dying. Those flimsy notions would evaporate, they’d be pulled out, and you, my friend, will be turned inside out, like socks! While this new outlook may feel awkward at first, you’re going to enjoy fresh and glorious experiences, free of all struggle and worry.”

Here, inside the privacy
of ratio gold and leaning
ever more toward limitless
I happily ignore what does not
please in favour of the guidance
that propels me here
from point to line
from pulse to spine

and while that participle dangles
pulling in all elements cooperative
like prawns upon a hook with bite
enough to banish fish I do not wish
to be digested by, I casually observe
the opposite, pay tribute to adjacent

and while future softly laps
against perfection of the present,
I imagine that the poetries purported
to be lost of Apuleius and those others
from the Mystery Schools were never
lost at all—‘twas me who lost connection
to the stars, who wouldn’t try new angles
in the fear that someone else’s quarter
circle might be righter than. My word!
How could I think—it doesn’t matter
now, those days are gone.

Propulsion of today assures
me there’s no end point, never was,
that everybody’s fine, their angles
right and phi. I’ll meet you here.
There is no other place.

I know poets who discard
their lines like trousers, shirt
and underwear from door to
bed, a hurried one-night stand
with somebody—they don’t
quite catch the name—
and whoosh, they’re gone.

Pressing in to what
he’s left behind, a slavering
crowd approves—why not,
for what could safer be
than catching drifts of
someone else’s ripples,
seventh hand seduction,
quick! Spectator’s game.

I know poets who
with charcoal palettes
draw precise and gloomy
verse that mostly sounds
the same, convincing all who
somberly agree to congregate
and read, of vast intelligence—
the poet’s, not the readers’.

I’d rather know a poet
who takes time to rise above
the melancholic, with wit enough
to shake his trousers upside down
for change, who knows my name,
feels eager in the dawn’s cool
light to spring from bed and
plant bare feet on new
and higher ground.

And more than this,
I know that readers too
who aren’t me would wriggle
deep and breathe a-fresh
to see the naked poet
pick his clothes up
off the floor and
put the coffee on.

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber: Rhubarb, rhubarb, this is just terrible! We have to save him—a crime, what a sin! Reason gives way to cheap flips of the voluble.

Peahens and cocks knew long before Hannibal orders of pecking are neat, sharp, and trim. Be the bird who observes, stays out of the rabble. When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin

to mimic each other. It’s one way to win a seat at the table of dimmed wits and garble. Of neutral to cheerful, the crowds are thin. To jabber, rhubarb, rhubarb, this is just terrible

sells better airtime and saves me the trouble of finding perspective amidst the din. While I’d like to be happy, it feels impossible. We have to save him—a crime, what a sin!

The view of the eagle is much less grim for she sees the shape of what seems insolvable. Who receives, who inflicts are inseparable kin; reason gives way to cheap flips of the voluble.

Let the parroting part of your mind be inaudible; for the peace and the joy of us, new visions spin. Unoriginal grief is the way of the gullible; the whole forest knows re-Creation begins when the eagles are silent.

~~~

Some of you may recognize the opening words of this rondeau. “When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber,” was first uttered by Winston Churchill. I’m hoping he won’t mind I heard a poem in it.

The title “Rhubarb, Rhubarb” comes from the non-vegetable meaning of the word as baseball slang for an argument or fight. It’s also used as rabble verbiage in theatre or film, especially when the crowd are shaking their fists.

I threw into the sea today
all that I know of poetry
and pundits, cutting edge
and means to ends that
do not interest me

then turned away
and while I trek this land
now featureless without
the borderguards and ushers—Mind your step!—who monitor
and fret, the gorgons of a grinding
politic blow loud and fierce across
my shoulder blades, their arguments
compounding or appearing to, against
all evidence my heart displays just
out of reach that all is well

and what I see
the tor just now that’s
coming into view is not,
as you might think, some
vain imagining. The tugging
at my earlobe known as hope
it brought me here, and when of
inland play I’ve had my fill, the gyroscope
of which I’m made will spin and lift me
toward the ocean’s edge where all that
I have cast awaits in fleets, the new world
ripe to populate—and me, at last, I’m
tall enough to reach and step aboard.

Are you equipped for exaltation?
Are you properly kitted to observe
the torus of your magnificent unfolding?

Or are you still relating
the story of the fish scale
that lodged at the back
of your throat when the love
of your life called you
a bore and walked out?

If you can’t take it in yet
that you are the center
of Creation that expands,
could you at least put yourself
at the mid-point of the Coliseum,
not worrying too much whether
you’re dancing with lions, gladiators,
or bears with gold rings in their noses?

You are every bit the center too
when sands of the arena are raked
at night and lit by Sirius.

Come on, don’t tell me that
doesn’t make you smile just a little.

Thing is, friend, while you’re busy
sorting your dog-eared Go Fish deck
of who to disapprove of today and why,
a three-month-old baby at the table
beside you is building community
with gurgles and bare toes.

Learn how to hope, to wait for the turning of the tide
in the same way as a boat beached up on the shore
and if the tide leaves without you do not be disillusioned.
Everyone who waits knows that victory will be his.

I bring you a new language
from the interstice between conflict
and that blunted state too quick to reek
like bony cold fish soup left in the sun
that you call peace. Fashioned from platonic
solids, places, things, these words with pride
shall rest upon your tongue, content as sea
anemones to bask and watch for cause
to speak. Meanwhile, upon this crest abide.Learn how to hope, to wait for the turning of the tide.

I bring you a new state
beyond the perforated battle lines
punched into sand and mind when you were
not yet old enough to contradict divide
and conquer. Leys and laws of yesteryear
are washed away. This higher floor
derives no strength from soapboxes,
stands firm, regenerates anew each day
and welcomes tidal rests, awaiting morein the same way as a boat beached up on the shore.

I bring you a new nation
sea to brilliant sea and towering
with stalls of spice and fruits heaped high
and every stage of life enjoyed. No mothers
forced to choke down bile, a flag placed in her
hands as substitute. All danger repositioned
to adventure with the certainty that we’ll come
round again, while Nature’s high, as stimulant,
appeases every curiosity our eager hearts envisionedand if the tide leaves without you do not be disillusioned.

I bring you a new love
unlike those who from their
spindly cynics’ perches feign a tolerance
for visions of utopia you’ve dreamed since
infancy. This love, like you, has jettisoned
paralysis of hope. He’s unafraid—his kiss
you know by heart, his signature’s right here
by yours, a declaration marked to reunite you
at tide’s turning where you’ll both remember this:Everyone who waits knows that victory will be his.

~~~

The experience of writing a glosa is always magical for me, but never has it crossed so deeply into the realm of enchantment as this one. The crown stanza by the great Spanish poet Antonio Machado is excerpted from a biography about an equally great Spanish artist, Luis Quintanilla. Machado, a mentor and friend, gave this poem to the young painter in a bar in Segovia, saying he’d thought of him while writing it.

Waiting at the Shore: Art, Revolution, War, and Exile in the Life of the Spanish Artist Luis Quintanilla was written by his son, Paul, and published in 2014 by Sussex Press. If you’ve ever wished you could have lived in Paris during La Belle Epoque, befriending Hemingway, rubbing shoulders with Picasso and Modigliani; been commissioned by the Duke of Alba to paint frescoes for his palace; fought against Fascists in the Spanish Civil War; called the greatest artist of your time, only to be exiled, forgotten, and after your death to be remembered again…

I cannot recommend Paul Quintanilla’s book highly enough, and I thank him for permission to use his father’s painting as the cover for this glosa.